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The honest and diligent taxpayer must be appreciated and encouraged — this is the new mantra of the NDA government. And the Central Board of Direct Tax (CDBT), has been entrusted the job of sending out certificates of honour to individuals who pay above Rs.1 lakh income tax. CBDT has already mailed over 800,000 such certificates since the initiative was launched less than two weeks ago. An official source said that the department has been asked to undertake the exercise on priority. So many more such certificates will be sent out in the coming days. According to government data, only 1 million taxpayers declare incomes over Rs.10 lakh, below which the tax rate is 20%. This is only 2% of the total taxpayers in the country. This will be an annual affair. “The tax department is not there to harass the citizens..while it is firm, it is not going to take any step to harass citizens,” Hasmukh Adhia, revenue secretary told HT. “We want tax payers to be made part of the nation building p

After much dilly-dallying, the finance ministry on Wednesday said it will take away from the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) the powers to manage public debt or government borrowings in about two years and has set up a cell for an interim period to smoothen the transition so that markets do not witness disruptions. The move is in line with steps announced by the government recently such as inflation targeting and setting up of Monetary Policy Committee to streamline the functioning of RBI. The Public Debt Management Cell (PDMC), to be housed at RBIs Delhi office, will be upgraded to a statutory Public Debt Management Agency (PDMA) in "about two years", the ministry said in a circular. PDMC would have only advisory functions to avoid conflict with statutory functions of RBI, the circular said. The cell has been tasked with planning government borrowings, including market and other borrowings, like sovereign gold bond issuance. Other functions of PDMC are managing governm

Due to an unforeseen expense, you exhaust your salary in the middle of the month. Usually, people ask their friends for a small bridge loan, to be repaid as soon as the salary is credited in the bank account. There are times when they may not be able to help. Targeting such individuals, some non-banking financial companies (NBFCs) have started offering small tenure loans that can be rapid in a few days and the borrower is charged interest only for that period. Essentially, it’s a credit line on tap for individuals, who can avail a loan whenever they want and repay as soon as they have the funds. These products serve as an alternative to the little-known facility that banks offer, overdraft against salary. Though both facilities serve the same purpose, the one from NBFCs work out to be more convenient but a little expensive when compared to taking an overdraft from a bank, as many of the latter charge simple interest rates. NBFCs can also offer higher amounts compared to most banks.

The limited explanation on the Reserve Bank of India’s lowering of the real interest rate and the time to be taken for achieving the four percent Consumer Price Index(CPI)inflation target has markets guessing on the trigger and implications. The central bank got room to effect a 25-basis point(bp) rate cut due to a change in its stance on the neutral real rate and the time frame for achieving the inflation target. Global financial group Citi said the real interest rate band of 1.5 to two percent the previous RBI governor,Raghuram Rajan,had talked about had been lowered to 1.25 percent. The real interest rate is the difference between CPI-based inflation and yield on one-year treasury bills. With inflation at five percent and the repo rate now at 6.25 percent,there is no space to further cut the latter, unless inflation surprises further on the downside.But, the lowering of the real interest rate band is surprising.RBI did not elaborate on why,except to say it changes over time.

Public and private banks are readying themselves to handle collection, accounting, and money transfers under the goods and services tax (GST) structure by December. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and the finance ministry have started holding monthly meetings with banks to check their preparedness. The new tax structure may be implemented from April 2017. Banks also need to send their status reports to the RBI and the government. Sources said the technology teams are trying to identify “teething problems” that could arise in the next couple of months. Banks that mostly follow automatised systems will have to further upgrade their IT management to ensure the GST is implemented smoothly. The individual bank boards have also been monitoring the situation. “Most public sector banks are almost ready with the systems, we are confident we would be able to move towards the seamless implementation of the new structure,” K Raghu, former president, Institute of Chartered Accountants o